How Effective is Plaquenil for Crohn’s Disease?

ByPrimary Researcher

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Executive Summary

  • Plaquenil is approved by the FDA for several autoimmune diseases. One of these is Crohn’s.

Introduction

Plaquenil is used against Crohn’s disease. Crohn’s disease is often considered an autoimmune disease, but it may, in fact, be caused by bacteria or by inflammatory foods. HCQ is both antiviral and antibacterial. HCQ is also an immunomodulator. Therefore, the mechanism of HCQ would work if Crohn’s is either due to a bacteria or due to inflammatory foods.

How is Crohn’s Much Related to Diet?

You can read many articles on Crohn’s disease without finding any explanation as to the correlation with diet. This correlation is explained in the quotation from Management of Crohn’s Disease—A Practical Approach.

The incidence of Crohn’s disease differs across racial and ethnic boundaries. It is more common in whites than in blacks, in women than in men, and in Jewish than in non-Jewish persons Environmental factors must play a role in the development of Crohn’s disease, because while the disease is uncommon in African blacks, U.S. blacks have an incidence similar to that of whites. Also, there is some association with diet, and the disease affects more smokers than expected.

This would tend to fall into the explanatory category of inflammatory foods.

Due to chronic diarrhea, patients with Crohn’s can end up malnourished as their bodies are jettisoning food before their bodies have enough time to fully digest it – in addition to other inflammatory issues. This is explained in the following quotation.

Anemia also can be caused by malabsorption of vitamin B12, blood loss, or the effect of inflammation on the bone marrow. Patients may also have an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate. With the appropriate clinical presentation, the diagnosis can be suggested by radiography, but should be confirmed by endoscopy and biopsy when possible.

Crohn’s disease is known as a digestive disorder, but its impacts are not limited to the digestive system. The following are common areas affected by those with Crohn’s.

Joint manifestations (25 percent)
Arthralgia
Arthritis